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Low Orbit Extra-Atmospheric Deployment
The Low Orbit Extra-Atmospheric Deployment, colloquially referred to as LOED or LOE Deployments, is a method of orbital insertion employed by theSystems Alliance and numerous other military and paramilitary organizations around the galaxy to rapidly deploy troops planetside. All personnel enlisted with the Alliance Marines receive are trained in the employment of this and other methods before receiving zero-gravity certification and being put on active duty. History The offspring of pre-spaceflight high-altitude paratrooper drops, LOED was proposed as a way to insert special operations teams on enemy-occupied worlds whilst minimizing the risk of detection. Though popular among turian vanguard forces and salarian STG infiltration teams since the Krogan Rebellions, it was first used in combat by humanity during the First Contact War when Special Forces units were dropped on occupied Shanxi ahead of main assault force to secure ground for the landings. While they played only a minor role in the battle itself, it validated the concept and paved the way for expansion on the idea in coming years. With the spike in the number of occupied worlds as humanity joined the galactic community, the technique was adopted by all branches of the Alliance Navy. Equipment The equipment used for LOEDs became standardized at the same time the training did, and all marine units assigned aboard starships are equipped for a variety of atmospheric and extra-atmospheric deployments. *Hardsuit – Standard-issue suit of ablative plate armor paired with a personal mass effect field generator can survive both the heat of reentry and collisions with small, fast-moving orbital debris. Ablative armor plates are typically replaced after no more than ten LOEDs, though they’re rated to survive several dozen whilst sustaining only minor cosmetic damage. Hardsuits customarily also have additional sealed compartments attached to the chest and legs for drops in order to store equipment. *Drop Apparatus – A large, rigid rectangular case housing a main parachute, an emergency reserve, and a rudimentary propulsion system for maneuvering in micro-gravity environments (essentially a bottle of compressed air). It also contains a small storage space for the user’s primary weapon or other small pieces of equipment. On worlds where a parachute is ineffective, a drop pack—specialized form of personal jetpack—is substituted. *Drop Box – A reinforced, footlocker-sized crate coated in ablative armor used to store additional equipment the marines could not fit on their person. Weighing approximately one-hundred kilos when fully loaded, it is equipped with its own parachute or mass effect field, but lacks propulsion and must be guided during descent and recovered on the ground after landing. *Radio-Operated Cargo Canister (ROCC) – A single-issue drop pod measuring 20 feet tall by 4 feet wide by 4 feet deep with a cargo capacity of up to one metric ton. They are slung under a small spacecraft and released or essentially pushed out of the cargo bay of an orbiting starship toward the planet where they are carried by inertia and eventually begin to freefall once encountering the world’s gravitational field. From there, they follow a radio beacon or infrared laser toward their destination, the canisters only navigation small mass effect field boosters that also protect it from debris. These are either dropped ahead of time into LOED landing zones or afterward to resupply teams on the group with anything from food to base building materials to small all-terrain vehicles. Variants There are two primary kinds of LOEDs; trajectory drops and free deployments. *Trajectory drops—most commonly used by small starships to deploy vehicles from orbit—involve the ship flying over the drop area and releasing the vehicle in a manner similar to launching a disruptor torpedo. From there, the vehicle will reenter the world’s atmosphere and begin to maneuver under its own power. Drop-capable vehicles such as the M35 Mako or M44 Hammerhead are able to adjust their decent using mass effect fields and integrated rockets, but other vehicles must be equipped with large parachutes or powerful mass effect field generators and are at the mercy of the drop trajectory and atmospheric conditions during decent. Trajectory drops are often done in atmosphere instead of in orbit in order to allow a more precise drop and reduce the chance of interception. *Free deployments are used to insert infantry teams quickly onto hostile worlds were a shuttle is impractical or otherwise unavailable. The drop is normally executed in low orbit over the target planet, though the ability of infantry teams to adjust their course mid-flight allows them to be dropped farther away from the landing zone than a vehicle and can also land in clearings of under 40 square meters. Depending on the spacing of individuals during the descent, the radar cross section of the drop is negligible and is undetectable by long wavelength sensory equipment such as orbital platforms and ground-based sensor arrays. However, they are highly susceptible to devices that operate on the shorter wavelength infrared spectrum, as—while hardsuits are able to mask an individual’s body heat to some degree—the parachute or drop pack signature is much more detectable. Popular Culture Low Orbit Extra-Atmospheric Deployments are a staple of 22nd century war vids and games, particularly among human productions leading to the misconception among civilians that it is a common or even the only ''method of insertion used by militaries around the galaxy. It is was popularized by such vids as ''Blitz, a historical fiction film about the Skyllian Blitz in which the protagonist—an Alliance special forces operator—deploys in this method and the wildly popular first-person shooter N7 Code of Honor: Medal of Duty; whose mission start cinematic follows the player through several stages of a drop before the round begins.